Mplayer Talks Up a Storm

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New web site "hearme.com" focuses on interactive audio chat rooms.

By IGN Staff

Mpath Interactive--parent company of the online gaming service Mplayer--has announced a new "live audio community" which lets gamers and other Internet users gather together on its new web site, HearMe.com.

The web site is devoted to audio interaction amongst Internet users. Among the activities users are invited to partake in are chatting, singing, playing music, reciting poetry, and performing celebrity impersonations.

Participating should be relatively simple--participants need only a PC with a microphone, sound card and speakers, and need only download a piece of software from Mpath. This will let them participate in the audio chat rooms, or set up their own live audio rooms, all at no charge.

"This isn't about personal web pages, text chat, or webcasts,'' said Paul Matteucci, CEO of Mpath. "It involves the emergence of completely new online behaviors and activities created by our members. It's online Karaoke, music DJs, 'radio' stations, foreign language practice, talk shows, and club meeting rooms just for talking. We created HearMe.com to answer the unique needs of this thriving community."

Mpath created this site in response to the growing popularity of voice communications on its gaming service. It said that its 2.5 million registered users are already spending 85 million minutes a month engaged in audio activities, a rate that grew 25% per month throughout 1998, according to the company.

"Live audio communities are poised to be a primary application for the Internet because they are the first true example of how communications, entertainment and community converge online," said Brian Apgar, one of the founders of Mpath. "HearMe.com offers the immediacy of the telephone, the immersive and addictive properties of television, and the personal and interactive properties of the Internet. It answers people's fundamental human need to share interests, communicate, and build relationships and identity."

Mpath hopes that its audio chat rooms will become as popular as the text-based chat rooms of America Online or Internet Relay Chat (IRC). To this end, it is setting up dedicated channels with specific themes, such as 'Friends and Family', 'Romance', and the like.